Friday, 23 September 2011

Well, my first day of 39-ness was somewhat different to my plans, but good nonetheless. A couple of planned things didn't happen, so I had a fairly quiet day instead; but one that was filled with good things, lovely cards, nice emails and an Amazon shopping spree on books, thanks to Liz and Himself, who each gave me vouchers :)

It involved part of one of my challenges (soon to be posted, hopefully) which is to try at least five new foods this year. Yesterday I had Cadbury's Fudge Pancakes (thanks to Himself randomly saying 'fudge' and then 'pancake' a few days ago, and then deciding that it needed to be tried!). Today I had bilberries for the first time; The Gelfling is right - they taste like blueberries /ought/ to taste!

Fudge pancakes are a lovely gooey mess of over-sweetness, but a very-seldom type of treat. Bilberries are now on my top ten list of fruits-I-like, and will eat them at any and every opportunity! As I try more things, I'll post my thoughts!

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Welcome to my corner of the Blogosphere! I'm known as Olga, Lady Charis, Charis Victoria and a variety of other things ;)

The main purpose of this blog is to chronicle my challenge of doing 40 new things by the time I reach my 40th birthday. I will start this on my 39th birthday (in two days time!) which gives me a whole year. Some of the things will be things I've wanted to do for a long time, and I've just never had the incentive; other things are challenges to myself, and others still are just things I think I'd like to try. One or two of the things are quite expensive, but I'm hoping that a lot of them will be cheap, as keeping costs to a minimum has to be a consideration!

Many thanks to Liz, my sister in law, for telling me about her similar Challenge 35:35, and for allowing me to blatantly nick some of her ideas! In fact, some of the things we each want to do we might be trying to organise to do together, which would be lovely!

Another purpose of this blog will be to keep a journal of random thoughts and ideas, as I learn more about myself. For instance, at the grand age of 38, I've discovered that I have a Scanner personality (or Renaissance Soul, as I've also heard it called!) I'm interested in many things; when I was a child, General Knowledge was my specialist subject!

I'd been in a settled science-based job until a couple of years ago when I was made redundant. Since then, I've realised that I'm not really cut out for science as a career, so I'm trying my hand at a variety of things to see what I like, what I'm good at, and more importantly, what I'm not!

So far, I'm doing a silversmithing course, making steampunk jewellery and learning German as hobbies, and taking a Counselling course as a potential career change, although that is very definitely a maybe... I get the feeling that it's an interesting thing to learn, but might be too much for me to do as a real job.

Anyway, that's all for now - Real Life (and all its many things on the 'to-do list'!) beckons.

I'll try to keep the blog updated at least when I do any of my challenges. I'll put up my initial ideas in a couple of days, but as I've only got about 20 things so far, suggestions are welcome!